Rainforest festival in Assam’s jungles
Copyright 2001 The Times of India
November 23, 2001
BY SHANKHADEEP CHOUDHURY
JOYPUR: It was a meeting with a difference, a meeting where a five-minute silence was observed for five dead elephants.
The rainforest festival was set rolling on November 17 in this sleepy township. The festival – the first of its kind in the North-East – celebrates, among other things, the cultural and spiritual links between forests and communities. But there was an element of sadness to it.
On the eve of this festival, which also aims at protecting rainforests (3,800 acres of which we lose every minute), a train rammed into an elephant herd crossing a rail tract between Bogapani and Digboi railway stations on the night of November 15.
Five elephants, all believed to be residents of this particular 500-kilometre stretch of verdant rainforests (the most important elephant corridor between Assam and Arunachal Pradesh) were killed.
Two days later, Assam’s minister of state for environment and home, Pradyut Bordoloi led 3,000-odd mourners, including top Dibrugarh district administration officials, international and national delegates and locals, in mourning the deaths at the festival’s inauguration.Nevertheless, once the festival – celebrating the folklore, music and arts that have emerged from the rich rainforest tracts – got going, the mood became upbeat.
Manisha Gupta, director of Ashoka India which had supported the event, feels: “It was a massive success. Activities ranged from open meetings, discussions, street dramas, and exhibitions of tribal products to ethnic dances, visits to tribal villages, forest treks, rafting, camping inside dense jungles, bird watching, elephants rides....we enjoyed every minute of it.”
Environmentalists, rainforest defenders, human rights activists, ethnologists and wildlife experts – many of them foreigners – also descended at this festival, one objective of which was to highlight nationally and internationally the fragile status of rainforests in northeastern India, besides building up international public opinion for the permanent protection of these forests.
“The forests should be declared a sanctuary. That will boost tourism in our area and generate employment, apart from protecting the valuable rainforests,” said Renu Barpujari, a member of the festival’s reception committee, which comprises only local villagers.